Thursday, August 30, 2012

Michelangelo Merisi, aka Caravaggio, was notoriously bad-tempered and violent, constantly getting into physical altercations, confident that his moneyed patrons would fish him out of scrape after scrape. They mainly did, as it happened, and when they didn’t, he just skipped town for a while until the heat was off him. The stories about him have become part of his legend — the bad boy artist who lived fast, died young and left a sunstroked/syphilitic/stabbed/lead poisoned corpse — and it’s difficult to tell fact from gossip.

Rome’s State Archives contain a myriad primary documents detailing Caravaggio’s many brushes with the law (among other information about his life and work) but until recently they were on the verge of falling apart as the acid in the ink ate away at the parchment. With the Culture Ministry slashing budgets left, right, and center, it took a desperate appeal in the Italy’s version of the Wall Street Journal, Il Sole-24 Ore, to rally a group of private sponsors to donate the funds needed to restore thousands of police logs, court decisions and eye-witness testimony so the legend of bad boy Caravaggio could be fleshed out with the fact of him.

Now that they’ve been restored, the pages have gone on display at Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza, a church that houses the State Archives, along with complementary works of art including Caravaggio’s portrait of Pope Paul V, last on public display 100 years ago, that illustrate the story of his life with heretofore unseen detail and accuracy. Written in a mixture of legal Latin and Roman vernacular (the latter is understandable if you can read modern Italian), the documents are bound into ten volumes of 1,500 parchment pages each. I defy even our best of criminals today to produce so glorious a rap sheet.

Here are some of the highlights of his arrest record:

4 May 1598: Arrested at 2- 3am near Piazza Navona, for carrying a sword without a permit

19 November 1600: Sued for beating a man with a stick and tearing his cape with a sword at 3am on Via della Scrofa

2 October 1601: A man accuses Caravaggio and friends of insulting him and attacking him with a sword near the Piazza Campo Marzio 24 April 1604: Waiter complains of assault after serving artichokes at an inn on the Via Maddalena

28 May 1605: Arrested for carrying a sword and dagger without a permit on Via del Corso

29 July 1605: Vatican notary accuses Caravaggio of striking him from behind with a weapon

28 May 1606: Caravaggio kills a man during a pitched battle in the Campo Marzio area

There are all kinds of previously unknown details in the record. For instance, although we know about the brawl in which he killed a man that led to him being condemned to death by Pope Paul V and him having to flee speedily and stay fled for four years, we now know that it was over an unpaid gambling debt and that it was a full-on planned rumble like inThe Outsiders or West Side Story. All eight participants, Caravaggio and three of his mates (one of them a captain in the Papal guard and probably a mercenary Caravaggio hired for the occasion) plus their four antagonists are all named in the records. The man he killed was Ranuccio Tommassoni.

The artichoke assault is a new find. Pietro Antonio de Fosaccia, the waiter who bore the brunt of Caravaggio’s artichoke-induced rage, filed a police report about it.

About 17 o’clock [lunchtime] the accused, together with two other people, was eating in the Moor’s restaurant at La Maddalena, where I work as a waiter. I brought them eight cooked artichokes, four cooked in butter and four fried in oil. The accused asked me which were cooked in butter and which fried in oil, and I told him to smell them, which would easily enable him to tell the difference.

He got angry and without saying anything more, grabbed an earthenware dish and hit me on the cheek at the level of my moustache, injuring me slightly… and then he got up and grabbed his friend’s sword which was lying on the table, intending perhaps to strike me with it, but I got up and came here to the police station to make a formal complaint…

To be fair, that’s not great service. Not assault-worthy, mind you, but maybe short tip-worthy.

Another piece of information found in the records is Caravaggio’s exact birth date and location: September 29, 1571, in Milano, not the small town of Caravaggio which gave him his nickname. That means he was older than biographers realized when he first began painting in Rome. He was 19, not 16, which makes him an adult, not the precocious phenom he would later be described as.

Caravaggio died in 1610 in Porto Ercole, and the records shed some light on his passing as well. It seems that he did not die on the beach, as legends would have it, but that controversial bone-hunter Maurizio Merini was right that he died in a hospital.

The Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza exhibit will remain open until May 15. There are no current plans for it to travel.

Michelangelo Merisi, aka Caravaggio, was notoriously bad-tempered and violent, constantly getting into physical altercations, confident that his moneyed patrons would fish him out of scrape after scrape. They mainly did, as it happened, and when they didn’t, he just skipped town for a while until the heat was off him. The stories about him have become part of his legend — the bad boy artist who lived fast, died young and left a sunstroked/syphilitic/stabbed/lead poisoned corpse — and it’s difficult to tell fact from gossip.

Rome’s State Archives contain a myriad primary documents detailing Caravaggio’s many brushes with the law (among other information about his life and work) but until recently they were on the verge of falling apart as the acid in the ink ate away at the parchment. With the Culture Ministry slashing budgets left, right, and center, it took a desperate appeal in the Italy’s version of the Wall Street Journal, Il Sole-24 Ore, to rally a group of private sponsors to donate the funds needed to restore thousands of police logs, court decisions and eye-witness testimony so the legend of bad boy Caravaggio could be fleshed out with the fact of him.

Now that they’ve been restored, the pages have gone on display at Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza, a church that houses the State Archives, along with complementary works of art including Caravaggio’s portrait of Pope Paul V, last on public display 100 years ago, that illustrate the story of his life with heretofore unseen detail and accuracy. Written in a mixture of legal Latin and Roman vernacular (the latter is understandable if you can read modern Italian), the documents are bound into ten volumes of 1,500 parchment pages each. I defy even our best of criminals today to produce so glorious a rap sheet.

Here are some of the highlights of his arrest record:

4 May 1598: Arrested at 2- 3am near Piazza Navona, for carrying a sword without a permit

19 November 1600: Sued for beating a man with a stick and tearing his cape with a sword at 3am on Via della Scrofa

2 October 1601: A man accuses Caravaggio and friends of insulting him and attacking him with a sword near the Piazza Campo Marzio 24 April 1604: Waiter complains of assault after serving artichokes at an inn on the Via Maddalena

28 May 1605: Arrested for carrying a sword and dagger without a permit on Via del Corso

29 July 1605: Vatican notary accuses Caravaggio of striking him from behind with a weapon

28 May 1606: Caravaggio kills a man during a pitched battle in the Campo Marzio area

There are all kinds of previously unknown details in the record. For instance, although we know about the brawl in which he killed a man that led to him being condemned to death by Pope Paul V and him having to flee speedily and stay fled for four years, we now know that it was over an unpaid gambling debt and that it was a full-on planned rumble like inThe Outsiders or West Side Story. All eight participants, Caravaggio and three of his mates (one of them a captain in the Papal guard and probably a mercenary Caravaggio hired for the occasion) plus their four antagonists are all named in the records. The man he killed was Ranuccio Tommassoni.

The artichoke assault is a new find. Pietro Antonio de Fosaccia, the waiter who bore the brunt of Caravaggio’s artichoke-induced rage, filed a police report about it.

About 17 o’clock [lunchtime] the accused, together with two other people, was eating in the Moor’s restaurant at La Maddalena, where I work as a waiter. I brought them eight cooked artichokes, four cooked in butter and four fried in oil. The accused asked me which were cooked in butter and which fried in oil, and I told him to smell them, which would easily enable him to tell the difference.

He got angry and without saying anything more, grabbed an earthenware dish and hit me on the cheek at the level of my moustache, injuring me slightly… and then he got up and grabbed his friend’s sword which was lying on the table, intending perhaps to strike me with it, but I got up and came here to the police station to make a formal complaint…

To be fair, that’s not great service. Not assault-worthy, mind you, but maybe short tip-worthy.

Another piece of information found in the records is Caravaggio’s exact birth date and location: September 29, 1571, in Milano, not the small town of Caravaggio which gave him his nickname. That means he was older than biographers realized when he first began painting in Rome. He was 19, not 16, which makes him an adult, not the precocious phenom he would later be described as.

Caravaggio died in 1610 in Porto Ercole, and the records shed some light on his passing as well. It seems that he did not die on the beach, as legends would have it, but that controversial bone-hunter Maurizio Merini was right that he died in a hospital.

The Sant’Ivo alla Sapienza exhibit will remain open until May 15. There are no current plans for it to travel.

Sunday, August 26, 2012

The end stages of anyone's life are likely to be somewhat chaotic. Ailments consume one's thoughts, strength wanes, memory fades, and the ability to take care of ordinary activities, albeit work or just shopping for food, declines. Those with jobs are apt to retire - the business will go on - and devote the remainder of their lives to a less stressful existence. In 1996, multimedia sculptor Nam June Paik (1932-2006) suffered a stroke that largely curtailed his ability to create new installations, but his career was far from over. Exhibitions of his work were being planned, new pieces were still being fabricated and existing works continued to be put up for sale at galleries. What's more, a series of sculptures purportedly by Paik, but which the artist denied were his, were put up for sale, leading to two lawsuits against Paik, which his lawyers chose to settle, because Paik was not deemed mentally competent to testify at trial. "You can see this as people taking advantage of a senile artist," said Paik's nephew and estate executor, Ken Hakuta. "He was sick." The lawsuits were eventually resolved out of court. Had Paik maintained a documentary record for all his work - "So-and-So Gallery or studio assistant is authorized to produce this-many pieces, to be titled this, this and that and sold for these prices," signed and initialed by all parties involved - the confusion might have been resolved more quickly and with less expense. Good recordkeeping, unfortunately, is not one of the characteristics of highly successful artists. Diminished brain function, however, may prove catastrophic for an artist whose business is run completely out of his or her head. "Just getting old is hard," said Dr. John Zeisel, director of the Woburn, Massachusetts-based organization Artists for Alzheimer's. "Bills don't get paid; things don't get put away. Most creative types have things lying around anyway and, when they develop dementia, it becomes much harder to organize." Among the problems that may occur are: • Artworks that have been loaned to a gallery, collector or museum and are forgotten. The recipients may construe the loans as gifts, sometimes selling the works. • Artworks consigned to a gallery and forgotten. Galleries, too, sometimes forget to pay artists. • Images that are licensed for commercial use, also forgotten. "Postmortem royalties, with few exceptions, tend to taper off," said Elliot Hoffman, a lawyer with an arts practice in New York City, "but sometimes royalty payers forget to pay the artist or the artist's estate or heirs. Sometimes, they just stop paying and wait to see if anyone complains." • Elements involved in the process of creating a multiples edition, such as mock-ups, proofs, maquets, molds or drawings, are overlooked by the artist but are subsequently used or sold by the publisher, fabricator or foundry. • Artworks that are not documented with photographs or written information (title, size, year, medium), which may pose later problems of attribution. Artists are generally thought to be the best judges of their own work (although there are instances where some have been less than truthful, denying early pieces they now dislike or, in the case of Giorgio di Chirico, intentionally misdating works) but, when the artist suffers memory loss (as in the case of Nam June Paik) or dies, the problem of attribution is magnified. Determining when a work was created and by whom becomes a more drawn-out and expensive process. "Artists, by definition, are not business-minded," Hoffman said, which is neither true nor a definition, but thee have been numerous instances of artists neglecting to keep good records on their artwork, loans, licenses and consignments, leading to headaches and lawsuits during an artist's lifetime and beyond. If artists kept better records on their work and careers, there might be less need for lawsuits, authentication committees - art fakes hardly would be profitable - and catalogue raisonnés. Toward that goal, the Joan Mitchell Foundation (155 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013, 212-524-0100, www.joanmitchellfoundation.org) is developing programs to work with artists. The foundation will underwrite this process by hiring an archivist and paying for a computer (if need be) and the creation of an image and text database rather than providing money to an artist directly. "If you just give artists money, they might not spend it on archives," said Carolyn Somers, executive director of the foundation. "While they are alive, artists can do their own catalogue raisonné."

The end stages of anyone's life are likely to be somewhat chaotic. Ailments consume one's thoughts, strength wanes, memory fades, and the ability to take care of ordinary activities, albeit work or just shopping for food, declines. Those with jobs are apt to retire - the business will go on - and devote the remainder of their lives to a less stressful existence. In 1996, multimedia sculptor Nam June Paik (1932-2006) suffered a stroke that largely curtailed his ability to create new installations, but his career was far from over. Exhibitions of his work were being planned, new pieces were still being fabricated and existing works continued to be put up for sale at galleries. What's more, a series of sculptures purportedly by Paik, but which the artist denied were his, were put up for sale, leading to two lawsuits against Paik, which his lawyers chose to settle, because Paik was not deemed mentally competent to testify at trial. "You can see this as people taking advantage of a senile artist," said Paik's nephew and estate executor, Ken Hakuta. "He was sick." The lawsuits were eventually resolved out of court. Had Paik maintained a documentary record for all his work - "So-and-So Gallery or studio assistant is authorized to produce this-many pieces, to be titled this, this and that and sold for these prices," signed and initialed by all parties involved - the confusion might have been resolved more quickly and with less expense. Good recordkeeping, unfortunately, is not one of the characteristics of highly successful artists. Diminished brain function, however, may prove catastrophic for an artist whose business is run completely out of his or her head. "Just getting old is hard," said Dr. John Zeisel, director of the Woburn, Massachusetts-based organization Artists for Alzheimer's. "Bills don't get paid; things don't get put away. Most creative types have things lying around anyway and, when they develop dementia, it becomes much harder to organize." Among the problems that may occur are: • Artworks that have been loaned to a gallery, collector or museum and are forgotten. The recipients may construe the loans as gifts, sometimes selling the works. • Artworks consigned to a gallery and forgotten. Galleries, too, sometimes forget to pay artists. • Images that are licensed for commercial use, also forgotten. "Postmortem royalties, with few exceptions, tend to taper off," said Elliot Hoffman, a lawyer with an arts practice in New York City, "but sometimes royalty payers forget to pay the artist or the artist's estate or heirs. Sometimes, they just stop paying and wait to see if anyone complains." • Elements involved in the process of creating a multiples edition, such as mock-ups, proofs, maquets, molds or drawings, are overlooked by the artist but are subsequently used or sold by the publisher, fabricator or foundry. • Artworks that are not documented with photographs or written information (title, size, year, medium), which may pose later problems of attribution. Artists are generally thought to be the best judges of their own work (although there are instances where some have been less than truthful, denying early pieces they now dislike or, in the case of Giorgio di Chirico, intentionally misdating works) but, when the artist suffers memory loss (as in the case of Nam June Paik) or dies, the problem of attribution is magnified. Determining when a work was created and by whom becomes a more drawn-out and expensive process. "Artists, by definition, are not business-minded," Hoffman said, which is neither true nor a definition, but thee have been numerous instances of artists neglecting to keep good records on their artwork, loans, licenses and consignments, leading to headaches and lawsuits during an artist's lifetime and beyond. If artists kept better records on their work and careers, there might be less need for lawsuits, authentication committees - art fakes hardly would be profitable - and catalogue raisonnés. Toward that goal, the Joan Mitchell Foundation (155 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013, 212-524-0100, www.joanmitchellfoundation.org) is developing programs to work with artists. The foundation will underwrite this process by hiring an archivist and paying for a computer (if need be) and the creation of an image and text database rather than providing money to an artist directly. "If you just give artists money, they might not spend it on archives," said Carolyn Somers, executive director of the foundation. "While they are alive, artists can do their own catalogue raisonné."

Friday, August 24, 2012

These photographs that appear to capture red-hot cracks in the Earth’s surface weren’t taken in Hawaii or Indonesia, but rather in the studio of artist Eszter Burghardt who uses wool and colored lights to create miniature natural landscapes including volcanoes, glaciers, fjords and rivers. See many more of her Wooly Sagas and a similar project using food: Edible Vistas.

These photographs that appear to capture red-hot cracks in the Earth’s surface weren’t taken in Hawaii or Indonesia, but rather in the studio of artist Eszter Burghardt who uses wool and colored lights to create miniature natural landscapes including volcanoes, glaciers, fjords and rivers. See many more of her Wooly Sagas and a similar project using food: Edible Vistas.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

But Christie’s auction was stronger overall, with a better-edited selection of work

By Georgina Adam.

Miró’s "Peinture (Etoile Bleue)", 1927, set a record for the artist at £23.6m. The work was effectively pre-sold as it carried a guarantee and “irrevocable bid” symbol

The June sales of impressionist and modern art in London produced very different results even if some startlingly high prices were achieved.

Things got off to a limp start at Sotheby’s evening sale on 19 June in a session that was marked by poor quality and overly high estimates. The 48 works in the catalogue had a target of £72.9m-£102.6m, and totalled just over £75m –slightly short of the low estimate, as pre-sale figures do not include commission. Fifteen lots failed, making a sold-through rate of 68.8%. “In view of the material on offer, things did better than I expected,” commented the London dealer Edmondo di Robilant.

The highlight was Miró’s Peinture (Etoile Bleue), 1927, which was effectively pre-sold as it carried a guarantee and “irrevocable bid” symbol. The work had recently been exhibited at the Zurich Kunsthaus (“Miró, Monet, Matisse—The Nahmad Collection”, 21 October 2011–15 January 2012) and carried an estimate of £15m-£20m. It was chased by Sotheby’s head of contemporary art, Tobias Meyer on the telephone, as well as Stephane Cosman Connery, who has just left his position as head of private sales at Sotheby’s, on a mobile phone in the room. Meyer bagged the painting at £23.6m, setting a new record for Miró.

The other standout was a fine group of Kandinsky works on paper which attracted bidding from the room and on the telephone. The highest price of £1.33m was given for Entwurf zu ‘Grüner Rand’, 1919 (est. £750,000-£900,000), from a telephone bidder. But there were many casualties, including two Munchs [Seated Young Woman, 1916, bought in at £2.3m, estimate £2.5m-£3.5m, and Kragerø in Spring, 1929, bought in at £800,000, estimate £1m-£1.5m.] and Otto Dix’s, Sitzender akt mit Blondem Haar, 1931, estimate £4m-£6m, unsold at £3.1m.

Christie’s sale the following night on 20 June was far stronger. It totalled £92.6m (pre-sale estimate £74.5m-£100m) with 80% of the lots finding buyers. The total could have been higher, but as the sale started the auctioneer announced that the top lot, a fleshy Renoir Baigneuse, 1888, had been sold privately.

The nude had set had set a record in 1997 when it sold for $20.9m at Sotheby’s New York (est $10m-$15m)—this time around it was estimated at £12m-£18m. Christie’s said the price agreed was “within the estimate”. What happened? There was speculation that the vendor, seeing the poor results at Sotheby’s and perhaps with little interest in the work, had got cold feet and decided to sell privately rather than chance the auction process.

Very good results were made for a group of 14 Degas bronzes from a private collection, with three horse sculptures attracting spirited bidding, although the highest price for the group was set by Etude du nu pour la ‘Petite danseuse de Quatorze ans’ from 1878-81, cast 1920-21. This made £2.8m over an estimate of £1.8m-£2.5m. The whole group carried a third-party guarantee.

Surrealism continued to be strong, with Magritte’s Les jours gigantesques, 1928, estimate £800,000-£1.5m, making £7.2m after a tough battle between two telephones and an unidentified man in the room, who finally won.

“It was a pretty strong sale, and better edited than Sotheby’s,” commented the dealer Nick Maclean afterwards: “It was very much in line with the taste of the market today, and showed how deep the market is for surrealist works.”

But Christie’s auction was stronger overall, with a better-edited selection of work

By Georgina Adam.

Miró’s "Peinture (Etoile Bleue)", 1927, set a record for the artist at £23.6m. The work was effectively pre-sold as it carried a guarantee and “irrevocable bid” symbol

The June sales of impressionist and modern art in London produced very different results even if some startlingly high prices were achieved.

Things got off to a limp start at Sotheby’s evening sale on 19 June in a session that was marked by poor quality and overly high estimates. The 48 works in the catalogue had a target of £72.9m-£102.6m, and totalled just over £75m –slightly short of the low estimate, as pre-sale figures do not include commission. Fifteen lots failed, making a sold-through rate of 68.8%. “In view of the material on offer, things did better than I expected,” commented the London dealer Edmondo di Robilant.

The highlight was Miró’s Peinture (Etoile Bleue), 1927, which was effectively pre-sold as it carried a guarantee and “irrevocable bid” symbol. The work had recently been exhibited at the Zurich Kunsthaus (“Miró, Monet, Matisse—The Nahmad Collection”, 21 October 2011–15 January 2012) and carried an estimate of £15m-£20m. It was chased by Sotheby’s head of contemporary art, Tobias Meyer on the telephone, as well as Stephane Cosman Connery, who has just left his position as head of private sales at Sotheby’s, on a mobile phone in the room. Meyer bagged the painting at £23.6m, setting a new record for Miró.

The other standout was a fine group of Kandinsky works on paper which attracted bidding from the room and on the telephone. The highest price of £1.33m was given for Entwurf zu ‘Grüner Rand’, 1919 (est. £750,000-£900,000), from a telephone bidder. But there were many casualties, including two Munchs [Seated Young Woman, 1916, bought in at £2.3m, estimate £2.5m-£3.5m, and Kragerø in Spring, 1929, bought in at £800,000, estimate £1m-£1.5m.] and Otto Dix’s, Sitzender akt mit Blondem Haar, 1931, estimate £4m-£6m, unsold at £3.1m.

Christie’s sale the following night on 20 June was far stronger. It totalled £92.6m (pre-sale estimate £74.5m-£100m) with 80% of the lots finding buyers. The total could have been higher, but as the sale started the auctioneer announced that the top lot, a fleshy Renoir Baigneuse, 1888, had been sold privately.

The nude had set had set a record in 1997 when it sold for $20.9m at Sotheby’s New York (est $10m-$15m)—this time around it was estimated at £12m-£18m. Christie’s said the price agreed was “within the estimate”. What happened? There was speculation that the vendor, seeing the poor results at Sotheby’s and perhaps with little interest in the work, had got cold feet and decided to sell privately rather than chance the auction process.

Very good results were made for a group of 14 Degas bronzes from a private collection, with three horse sculptures attracting spirited bidding, although the highest price for the group was set by Etude du nu pour la ‘Petite danseuse de Quatorze ans’ from 1878-81, cast 1920-21. This made £2.8m over an estimate of £1.8m-£2.5m. The whole group carried a third-party guarantee.

Surrealism continued to be strong, with Magritte’s Les jours gigantesques, 1928, estimate £800,000-£1.5m, making £7.2m after a tough battle between two telephones and an unidentified man in the room, who finally won.

“It was a pretty strong sale, and better edited than Sotheby’s,” commented the dealer Nick Maclean afterwards: “It was very much in line with the taste of the market today, and showed how deep the market is for surrealist works.”

The painting Gabrielle d’Estrées et une de ses soeurs by an unknown artist (c.1594), is of Gabrielle d’Estrées, mistress of King Henry IV of France, sitting up nude in a bath, holding (assumedly) Henry’s coronation ring, whilst her sister sits nude beside her and pinches her right nipple. Henry gave Gabrielle the ring as a token of his love shortly before she died.

Gabrielle d'Estrées et une de ses soeurs

The painting is a symbolic announcement anticipating the birth of Gabrielle’s first child with Henry IV, César de Bourbon. Her maternity is expressed in three ways: her sister pinches the source of the new mother’s milk, the servant in the background knits in preparation for the child, and the fire in the fireplace signifies the mother’s furnace. The love between Gabrielle and Henry IV is expressed by the painting of a love scene on the back wall and by the coronation ring.

Gabrielle d'Estrées et une de ses soeurs

This painting is interesting in that everything is peculiarly left-handedly-biased. Gabrielle’s sister is pinching her right nipple with her left hand, d’Estrées is holding what is said to be King Henry IV of France’s coronation ring with her left hand, and the seamstress in the background is sewing with her left hand. Additionally, the painting hanging in the background is of the lower body of a naked person, but contrary to rumor, he is not holding his penis with his left hand. A piece of red fabric is draped over his genitals.

The painting Gabrielle d’Estrées et une de ses soeurs by an unknown artist (c.1594), is of Gabrielle d’Estrées, mistress of King Henry IV of France, sitting up nude in a bath, holding (assumedly) Henry’s coronation ring, whilst her sister sits nude beside her and pinches her right nipple. Henry gave Gabrielle the ring as a token of his love shortly before she died.

Gabrielle d'Estrées et une de ses soeurs

The painting is a symbolic announcement anticipating the birth of Gabrielle’s first child with Henry IV, César de Bourbon. Her maternity is expressed in three ways: her sister pinches the source of the new mother’s milk, the servant in the background knits in preparation for the child, and the fire in the fireplace signifies the mother’s furnace. The love between Gabrielle and Henry IV is expressed by the painting of a love scene on the back wall and by the coronation ring.

Gabrielle d'Estrées et une de ses soeurs

This painting is interesting in that everything is peculiarly left-handedly-biased. Gabrielle’s sister is pinching her right nipple with her left hand, d’Estrées is holding what is said to be King Henry IV of France’s coronation ring with her left hand, and the seamstress in the background is sewing with her left hand. Additionally, the painting hanging in the background is of the lower body of a naked person, but contrary to rumor, he is not holding his penis with his left hand. A piece of red fabric is draped over his genitals.

Saturday, August 18, 2012

Toronto is renowned as the cultural capital of Canada. However, as Carla Bragagnini reports, one form of art has come under scrutiny in recent years. Toronto is an established centre of graffiti in North America but the city’s governing forces are cracking down, putting the existence of street art hubs such as Graffiti Alley at risk.

Thousands flock to Toronto’s famed Queen Street West every year, hoping to soak in the wide spectrum of art galleries and get their fix of the diverse art, design and fashion of Canada's urban capital. But only those who really know the city’s underground art scene will tell you that one of Toronto’s best art galleries is not found on Queen Street, but in an alley tucked away behind it. Straying off this main art street will unveil one of the city’s greatest hidden treasures - Rush Lane, better known as Graffiti Alley, a seemingly endless one-kilometer-long stretch of concrete canvas that runs from Spadina Avenue to Portland Avenue and is decorated not only by Toronto’s, but some of the world’s most celebrated street artists.

Known as a bustling city with the most corporate headquarters in Canada, many visitors don’t realize that Toronto has a surprisingly vibrant underground street art and graffiti scene. But stumbling upon the intense concentration of colours in Graffiti Alley these days is striking, as there has been a recent crackdown on the illegal act of graffiti throughout the city. Since coming into office in 2010, Toronto’s controversial mayor, Rob Ford has gone to great lengths in a campaign to eradicate graffiti, including creating a Smartphone app that allows Torontonians to photograph and report graffiti in the city, leaving property owners to foot the clean-up bill. Adding to the criticism is the fact that Ford has simultaneously cut funding of community initiatives that commissioned youth to paint murals in many of Toronto’s unique neighbourhoods, in an attempt to keep vandalism off the streets. Needless to say, Ford’s war on graffiti has made him a popular target of street art, with his image being frequently reproduced on the city's walls.

To better understand the debate, it’s important to note the difference between vandalism graffiti and skilled street art. And in order to see that difference, one just needs to pay a visit to the Graffiti Alley. The city has since deemed the outdoor gallery of ‘municipal significance’ and exempted it from its strict anti-graffiti bylaw.

Since the nature of street art is inevitably volatile and constantly evolving or disappearing, (even Banksy left his mark in Toronto a few years ago, but most of those works are gone) most street pieces have a short life-span. However, there is a great deal of respect for the art on display in Graffiti Alley, even among members of the street art community. Even ‘taggers’ and ‘toys’ (unskilled scribblers who write mindless graffiti on any surface) leave most of the art in Graffiti Alley untouched. As such, the alley features intricate street art by famous graffiti artists, past and present, local and international. A stroll down the alley will reveal well-preserved works by some of Toronto’s finest: Elicser, Spud, Uber, Poser and DeadBoy.

But Graffiti Alley is not the only spot in town housing ancient graffiti relics. Shortly after Brick Works, a brick-making factory in Toronto, closed its doors in 1984, it became a haven for street youth. Since then, its unoccupied kiln facilities have become covered in spray paint, some of which pays homage to the past with portraits of former kiln workers. Nearly every free surface is covered, with some pieces going back thirty years. The art collective now features contributions from Robot, Nektar, Ochrehe, Artchild, Bacon and even New York's Utah, who served time in prison for graffiti vandalism in 2009. The colourful shapes contrast beautifully with the worn-down industrial walls, rusty pipes and broken-down machinery, making it a popular stop for photographers in the city. Unfortunately, the art at Brick Works is currently under review to determine whether it is of ‘cultural significance’ to the city following a complaint the mayor's office received last year.

There is, however, another side to the fight against graffiti in Toronto, with some notable institutions taking a stand for local artists. Earlier this year, the Art Gallery of Ontario supported the cause by partnering with streets artists Pascal Paquette and Sean Martindale to bring street art indoors. This bold move showed that the gallery is up-to-date with the evolving and accepted concept of art. Their ‘NOW: A Collaborative Project’ program included open forums and discussions on issues in Toronto and graffiti tours around the city, among other initiatives.

Most recently, the city created a database of protected street art in Toronto. Registering graffiti allows for the preservation of significant commissioned and non-commissioned art; although in some cases, it is used by savvy property owners hoping to skip the graffiti clean-up bill. Last September, the city also stood behind Toronto’s first Street Art Showcase, a festival celebrating different forms of street art.

Although progress has been made this past year, with a determined mayor still in office, the graffiti debate in Toronto continues. But one thing is for certain: understanding the difference between art and vandalism is key, not only in order to preserve the city’s significant cultural works, but also its cultural identity.

Toronto is renowned as the cultural capital of Canada. However, as Carla Bragagnini reports, one form of art has come under scrutiny in recent years. Toronto is an established centre of graffiti in North America but the city’s governing forces are cracking down, putting the existence of street art hubs such as Graffiti Alley at risk.

Thousands flock to Toronto’s famed Queen Street West every year, hoping to soak in the wide spectrum of art galleries and get their fix of the diverse art, design and fashion of Canada's urban capital. But only those who really know the city’s underground art scene will tell you that one of Toronto’s best art galleries is not found on Queen Street, but in an alley tucked away behind it. Straying off this main art street will unveil one of the city’s greatest hidden treasures - Rush Lane, better known as Graffiti Alley, a seemingly endless one-kilometer-long stretch of concrete canvas that runs from Spadina Avenue to Portland Avenue and is decorated not only by Toronto’s, but some of the world’s most celebrated street artists.

Known as a bustling city with the most corporate headquarters in Canada, many visitors don’t realize that Toronto has a surprisingly vibrant underground street art and graffiti scene. But stumbling upon the intense concentration of colours in Graffiti Alley these days is striking, as there has been a recent crackdown on the illegal act of graffiti throughout the city. Since coming into office in 2010, Toronto’s controversial mayor, Rob Ford has gone to great lengths in a campaign to eradicate graffiti, including creating a Smartphone app that allows Torontonians to photograph and report graffiti in the city, leaving property owners to foot the clean-up bill. Adding to the criticism is the fact that Ford has simultaneously cut funding of community initiatives that commissioned youth to paint murals in many of Toronto’s unique neighbourhoods, in an attempt to keep vandalism off the streets. Needless to say, Ford’s war on graffiti has made him a popular target of street art, with his image being frequently reproduced on the city's walls.

To better understand the debate, it’s important to note the difference between vandalism graffiti and skilled street art. And in order to see that difference, one just needs to pay a visit to the Graffiti Alley. The city has since deemed the outdoor gallery of ‘municipal significance’ and exempted it from its strict anti-graffiti bylaw.

Since the nature of street art is inevitably volatile and constantly evolving or disappearing, (even Banksy left his mark in Toronto a few years ago, but most of those works are gone) most street pieces have a short life-span. However, there is a great deal of respect for the art on display in Graffiti Alley, even among members of the street art community. Even ‘taggers’ and ‘toys’ (unskilled scribblers who write mindless graffiti on any surface) leave most of the art in Graffiti Alley untouched. As such, the alley features intricate street art by famous graffiti artists, past and present, local and international. A stroll down the alley will reveal well-preserved works by some of Toronto’s finest: Elicser, Spud, Uber, Poser and DeadBoy.

But Graffiti Alley is not the only spot in town housing ancient graffiti relics. Shortly after Brick Works, a brick-making factory in Toronto, closed its doors in 1984, it became a haven for street youth. Since then, its unoccupied kiln facilities have become covered in spray paint, some of which pays homage to the past with portraits of former kiln workers. Nearly every free surface is covered, with some pieces going back thirty years. The art collective now features contributions from Robot, Nektar, Ochrehe, Artchild, Bacon and even New York's Utah, who served time in prison for graffiti vandalism in 2009. The colourful shapes contrast beautifully with the worn-down industrial walls, rusty pipes and broken-down machinery, making it a popular stop for photographers in the city. Unfortunately, the art at Brick Works is currently under review to determine whether it is of ‘cultural significance’ to the city following a complaint the mayor's office received last year.

There is, however, another side to the fight against graffiti in Toronto, with some notable institutions taking a stand for local artists. Earlier this year, the Art Gallery of Ontario supported the cause by partnering with streets artists Pascal Paquette and Sean Martindale to bring street art indoors. This bold move showed that the gallery is up-to-date with the evolving and accepted concept of art. Their ‘NOW: A Collaborative Project’ program included open forums and discussions on issues in Toronto and graffiti tours around the city, among other initiatives.

Most recently, the city created a database of protected street art in Toronto. Registering graffiti allows for the preservation of significant commissioned and non-commissioned art; although in some cases, it is used by savvy property owners hoping to skip the graffiti clean-up bill. Last September, the city also stood behind Toronto’s first Street Art Showcase, a festival celebrating different forms of street art.

Although progress has been made this past year, with a determined mayor still in office, the graffiti debate in Toronto continues. But one thing is for certain: understanding the difference between art and vandalism is key, not only in order to preserve the city’s significant cultural works, but also its cultural identity.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Outliers is an art project by Canadian artist Maskull Lasserre that involves shoes that have been modified with rubber moldings to mimic animal footprints. The shoes are then worn to leave animal footprints behind in urban areas, looking as if bears, rabbits, or deer were running loose around the city. Via Maskull Lasserre,

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welcome to my life

Being a painter is not a choice. It is not a chosen
profession. Painting is a compulsion. It is a need like breathing or eating. If
fact it regularly supersedes both. There is no choice in whether or not I will
paint only the when and often not even that. Away from the studio I think about
the canvas that sits there unfinished, calling to me, challenging me, maddening
me.